Today in History - Wednesday, July 30, 2008

By The Associated Press

Wednesday

Jul 30, 2008 at 3:15 AM

Today is Wednesday, July 30, the 212th day of 2008. There are 154 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On July 30, 1945, during World War II, the battle cruiser USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered components for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 316 out of some 1,200 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters.

On this date:

In 1619, the first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown, Va.

In 1729, the city of Baltimore was founded.

In 1792, the French national anthem "La Marseillaise," by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was first sung in Paris by troops arriving from Marseille.

In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Va., by exploding a gunpowder-filled mine under Confederate defense lines; the attack failed.

In 1908, the first round-the-world automobile race, which had begun in New York in February, ended in Paris with the drivers of the American car, a Thomas Flyer, declared the winners over teams from Germany and Italy.

In 1918, poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. (Kilmer is perhaps best remembered for his poem "Trees.")

In 1932, the Summer Olympic Games opened in Los Angeles.

In 1942, President Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" — WAVES for short.

In 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Medicare bill, which went into effect the following year.

In 1975, former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit — although presumed dead, his remains have never been found.

Ten years ago: Japan's Parliament declared Keizo Obuchi the country's next prime minister. "Buffalo Bob" Smith, the cowboy-suited host of "The Howdy Doody Show," died in Hendersonville, N.C., at age 80. A group of 13 Ohio machinists stepped forward to claim the $295.7 million Powerball jackpot. (The workers opted to take the cash option — one payment of about $161.5 million.)

Five years ago: In his State of the Union address, President Bush took personal responsibility for the first time for using disputed intelligence, but predicted he would be vindicated for going to war against Iraq. Iraq's U.S.-picked interim government named its first president: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite Muslim from a party banned by Saddam Hussein. Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley, died in Memphis, Tenn., at age 80.

One year ago: President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meeting at Camp David, forged a unified stand on Iraq. Chief U.S. Justice John Roberts was taken to a hospital after a seizure caused him to fall on a dock near his summer home in Maine. A second South Korean hostage was slain by the Taliban in central Afghanistan. Death claimed Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman at age 87; Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni at age 94; and Hall of Fame football coach Bill Walsh at age 75.